Sheds # 7 & 8 - The Year Of The Yearlings

Even though the weather has been anything but beautiful, I was able to get out to check my last camera and look for a couple antlers. On my way out, I came across another yearling shed and thought I may have matched up a little guy I found earlier this year... nope. Turns out there are just tons of yearling bucks this year. We got about 3-5 inches of snow up in the big woods last week and so I'm thinking that this buck lost this shed last night sometime after the snow stopped falling.

I checked the camera and as they were uploading, I said to myself, "I want something to surprise me." All of a sudden a new buck popped into view. He's a buck that a friend of mine got a few pictures of on his soybeans in late November/early December. He looks to be a three year old with good brows, but not much else. I struggled to identify him then, and I'm no closer now, although he still looks very familiar. He would probably score around 115-120, which is average for our three year olds. The cool part is that he came in to the camera on the 23rd, 24th, and 25th (several times). I hope that he continues to linger until those antlers fall. They'll only score about 45" each, but I'd love to have them.

Also, there was a buck that showed up that had freshly shed his antlers. What buck is this and where did he come from. This card pull had a few new bucks that had never been to the area yet. That gives me some hope, just in case more bucks are holding their headgear yet.

After that little jaunt, I stopped by a standing bean field and was able to pick up another antler in a matter of 35 minutes. I gridded nearly the entire field and on my last pass, I spotted a dark spot at about 30 yards. As I got closer, I thought I was on to a really nice antler, but because of the way it was laying and the mass on it, it had me fooled. I realized it was just a yearling that looked like a little moose paddle.

Either way, the trip was worth it. That makes 8 antlers for the year so far. Unbelievably, 6 of those 8 are from yearling bucks. I really need to stumble across a good antler. They're out there.